Ilse Aigner, Bavarian Veteran and Favored Candidate, Set to Be Germany's First Female President

When Chancellor Friedrich Merz opened his remarks at a Christian Social Union meeting in Munich in October and greeted Ilse Aigner by name, he had to stop speaking. The delegates rose to their feet and applauded her, loudly and for some time. Weeks later, it is clear what the moment pointed toward: Aigner is now the favored candidate to become Germany's next president.

News emerged over a weekend that Merz, who leads the Christian Democratic Union, favors Aigner for the post. She is a veteran of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and currently president of the Bavarian state parliament. The Federal Convention, a specially convened assembly, will vote on January 30, 2027, to choose a successor to Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The new president takes office in mid-March. The office is largely ceremonial, but its holder is head of state and is regarded as a moral authority for the nation. Because the CDU, CSU and their coalition partner, the Social Democrats, hold a majority in the convention, her election is considered highly likely.

Aigner, 61, is an unusual figure in a country where a law degree often seems a prerequisite for politics. She has no university degree. She trained as a telecommunications technician in order to join her parents' electrical business, and later spent several years at the military helicopter maker Eurocopter, now part of Airbus, developing electrical components.

She entered the Bavarian parliament for the CSU in 1994 and sat in the Bundestag from 1998 to 2013. From 2008 to 2013 she served under Chancellor Angela Merkel as agriculture and consumer protection minister, a pair of portfolios that bring pressure from the public during food scandals, from powerful lobbying groups and from conflicts at EU level. She got through the period without any major crisis and was generally well regarded. In 2013 she returned to Bavaria as economy minister under State Premier Horst Seehofer, who tried to establish her as his successor.

That plan was overtaken by Markus Söder, then Bavaria's finance minister and Seehofer's longtime rival inside the CSU. Söder won the power struggle after Seehofer's departure and became state premier in 2018. He and Aigner had entered the state parliament together in 1994 as its two youngest members, and their careers have been intertwined since. Söder's rise blocked her path to the premiership, but she has spent the past eight years as president of the state parliament and is a highly respected authority in Bavaria.

Her name has circulated for months as a possible head of state. Söder himself called her a suitable candidate in April, and signs of support came from several CDU and CSU representatives, as well as from the SPD and the Greens. Merz appeared wary for a long time, and other names came and went. Aigner has said little publicly during the maneuvering. In January, the Bavarian newspaper Merkur reported on a school visit in Tegernsee, where she told fourth graders she had never planned her career but had never been able to keep her mouth shut, which she said helped explain her election to various offices. Through the candidacy talks, she has shown she can do just that when it is wise.

If elected, she would be Germany's first female president, the first from the CSU, and the first who is single and has never married. Women have been nominated in almost every presidential election since 1999, when the Union put forward Thuringian physicist Dagmar Schipanski and the PDS, precursor of the Left Party, nominated theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann against the Social Democrat Johannes Rau. Given the majorities needed, those and later female candidates were effectively token nominees of minority parties, which is one reason pressure has grown to choose a woman as the majority candidate. Germany has never had a CSU president or chancellor; the party's closest brush with top office was Richard Stücklen, who served four years as Bundestag president from 1979.

The nomination carries consequences for Söder. Many believe a presidency for Aigner would close his path to the chancellorship, since the larger CDU usually prevails in choosing the Union's candidate and is unlikely to accept two CSU figures leading the country. It would also remove a popular natural rival from his home turf; he is 59. And by backing her, Merz clears the way for a CDU chancellor candidate, should the Union win the next federal election. First comes the vote on January 30.